Galerie frank elbaz is pleased
to announce\, Accordion\, Meredyth Sparks’s third exhibition at the galler
y. Accordion features a multi-paneled double-sided room divider\, several a
ccompanying wall installations\, as well as a selection of more intimately
scaled canvases. This new work furthers the conceptual and formal method of
extraction\, a technique Sparks has been refining over the last several ye
ars. According to the artist\, extraction involves the removal of and cutti
ng away from a pre-existing image or object\, intimating the absence of som
e “original” element. Rather than juxtaposing one image on top of another\,
extraction cuts into a found image\, a gesture that functions as a kind of
inverse to collage\, reframing scenes and imbuing the more representationa
l aspects of photographic space with the material properties of an art obje
ct. Sparks’s canvas-based work often includes glimpses of the stretcher bar
\, the wall and a manipulation of light and shadow. Together these elements
suggest a phenomenological pursuit of what exists “behind” or “beneath” th
e picture space\, shifting between illusion and abstraction\, reproduction
and invention.

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Beast of Burden\, the
centerpiece of the show\, captures in pixilated video stills\, Bette Midler
’s performance of the Rolling Stone’s "Beast of Burden” on a 1983 episode o
f The Johnny Carson Show. Midler’s performance stretches across twelve pane
ls\, freeze-framing the twisting and contorted gestures that embody her pla
yful form of burlesque. Each performance still has been cut in the form of
a grid in direct response to the trompe-l'oeil image on the opposite side t
he screen\, which in this case is a domestic wooden room divider\, interwea
ving an interior object with the spectacle of Midler’s public persona.

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In conversation with Beast of Burden\, Sp
arks has installed a series of “soft form” screens\, which had previously b
een sewn tautly onto stretcher bars and then removed. Suggestive of discard
ed clothing\, these screens now hang limply on the wall. Sparks’s play betw
een hard and soft forms\, along with the labor-intensive nature of her work
\, alludes to the historically feminine character of domestic labor. Togeth
er with the accordion screen\, however\, these soft forms also denote the h
and manipulation of an accordion instrument’s “bellows\,” which inflate and
deflate with air to form a continuous sound.

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The title of the exhibition\, Accordion\, foregrounds the screen’s
potential to physically expand and contract\, modifying the architecture o
f the space. However\, Accordion also recapitulates the expandable and coll
apsible nature of seeing\, remaking through the continuous reframing of the
banal and the ordinary.